BP and Coast Guard should address Louisiana's concerns about oil cleanup: An editorial

Louisiana coastal officials continue to raise concerns about the lack of monitoring and response to oil from the BP spill along our coast, and it's important that the company and the Coast Guard address these complaints.

MICHAEL DeMOCKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEWorkmen scoop globs of oil from the sand on the beach in Port Fourchon in June 2010, during the BP oil spill.

The state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority this week criticized the Coast Guard for prematurely allowing BP to pull out cleanup crews in much of Louisiana, even as oil shows up in marshes and on beaches.

The state is demanding that the agency and BP set up a long-term plan to monitor the coast and to address additional oil. Officials also want the Coast Guard to return to parts of the coast where the state has documented oil to active response, which would mean that BP contractors would continue to be responsible for cleaning any oil.

Some scientists have raised concerns that in some cases cleanup efforts can cause more damage to marshes than the effects of oil contamination -- a position cited by the Coast Guard. That's a valid viewpoint. But that doesn't mean that BP should be let off the hook when it comes to monitoring the presence of oil and to quickly cleaning it up in cases where that remains the best option.

The company also should be held responsible for mitigating damage caused by its previous cleanup efforts. Unfortunately, the 1990 Oil Pollution Act doesn't include mitigation as part of the immediate response to a spill. Instead, repairing damage from a cleanup is to be part of a separate National Resource Damage Assessment process that will take years to complete and execute. That's a deficiency in the law that should be corrected.

Louisiana's coast, and those who live along it, shouldn't have to wait that long. After the spill in 2010, BP promised to "make it right." That should mean continuing to monitor our coast, just like the company has continued to do in other states affected by the disaster, and repairing damage left behind.